The present invention is related basically to apparatus for separating a heavier solid ore material from a random mixture and more particularly to such devices utilized to separate gold from a placer material by passing a turbulent water flow over the material and collecting the heavier material that settles while the remainder of the material is carried away in the current.
It has long been desirable to obtain a simple, easy to operate, and inexpensive sluice for separating gold from placer material. Many such devices have been designed and utilized with varying degrees of success. However, most such devices are of a somewhat permanent nature in that they are bulky and require a stationary base with a movable sluice or trough mounted thereon. Water and placer are delivered separately to the sluice which is held adjacent to and possibly fed by a nearby source of water. Ordinarily, the sluice must be moved in order to gradually sift the placer from an input end of the trough toward an outlet where water and waste placer mixture is discharged. In order to provide such a continuous motion to the trough, a power means must be supplied or the trough must be operated manually. Therefore, the sluice assembly is either bulky, complex and expensive; or is at the least, difficult to operate manually over extended periods of time.
U.S. Pat. No. 224,406 discloses a machine for washing, sizing, and amalgamating gold and silver. This device discloses a perforated conical housing having a complementary auger rotatably carried therein along a central axis. Placer material is fed into the enlarged end of the housing and is carried by the rotating auger toward the reduced end while being separated as it moves along.
Other sluice separators are similar to that shown by U.S. Pat. No. 398,475 granted to M. T. Van Derveer wherein an elongated trough is provided with ridges extending transversely across the trough length for creating turbulence in water passing therethrough. A placer material is carried by the turbulent water along the trough so gold particles will settle into grooves between the ridges.
U.S. Pat. No. 496,391 discloses a gold separator wherein an elongated trough having a somewhat circular cross sectional configuration is utilized with longitudinal ribbing and a plurality of apertures formed through the trough.
The device of the present invention is substantially simpler in construction than the above described apparatus and includes only a single working element. Further, instead of producing a transverse turbulence in the water as it moves longitudinally in the trough, the present invention is intended to induce a somewhat longitudinally oriented spiral turbulence in the water as it moves along the trough. Such spiral turbulence has been found to most effectively separate heavier gold particles from the remainder of a placer material.